1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a telephone unit having a telephone directory with picture data, and in particular, to a picture data obtaining means and a method for correlating obtained picture data with character information such as telephone numbers.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In recent years, because of convenience, telephone units have been widely used. Correspondingly, they have been provided with high performance and high communication quality. In addition, it is expected that they will be developed as multimedia units having a variety of application functions.
As technologies that have been already accomplished, ringing melodies are known. Initially, telephone units were provided with only mechanical ringing tones that inform their users of incoming calls. Currently, the sound quality of ringing tones has been improved using for example four chords. Thus, the users can enjoy more advanced music. Regularly, ringing melodies for several songs can be stored in a memory of a telephone unit. They are correlated with telephone numbers stored in the telephone directory. When a call is terminated, a ringing melody corresponding to a caller's telephone number is generated. Thus, ringing melodies have been used as a caller identifying means.
In several years, it is expected that a technology that allows the data capacity transmitted and received to be remarkably increased will be accomplished. As a result, telephone units will be able to handle picture data.
Specifically, telephone units will be provided with a small camera, a picture codec, and so forth. Thus, the telephone units can be used as digital cameras or video cameras. Alternatively, telephone units will have a so-called television telephone function that allows picture data to be exchanged thereamong in real time.
Picture data captured to a telephone unit by such a means may be correlated with the telephone directory and used as a caller identifying means, similarly to a number display or a ringing melody.
Conventionally, in such a telephone unit having a telephone directory function with picture data, not only personal information such as telephone numbers and names, but also correlated picture data are pre-registered to the telephone directory. Thus, as disclosed in JPA 03-162087, when a call is terminated, picture data corresponding to the telephone number of the caller is displayed. In addition, as disclosed in JPA 11-041339, when a call is originated using the telephone directory function, the picture data corresponding to the particular information of the called party is displayed. Thus, according to the related art references, a calling party and a called party can be easily identified with visual information.
In addition, a picture data obtaining means and a method for correlating the picture data with character information such as telephone numbers are disclosed in for example JPA 11-205761. In FIG. 1, a telephone unit 3 is a telephone unit having a conventional digital camera function. picture data is obtained as captured picture of a camera 20. Alternatively, picture data is obtained through a communication network 16.
In the former case, a picture that is input from the camera 20 is converted into digital compressed picture data by a still picture encoder 11 and then stored in a telephone directory 10. In the latter case, a control signal is transmitted to a communication party 4 having the same digital camera function as the telephone unit 3. The control signal causes the communication party 4 to transmits the picture data to the telephone unit 3.
This point will be described in more detail. A control signal generating portion 21 of the telephone unit 3 generates a control signal that causes the communication party 4 to perform a photographing operation. The control signal is received by a receiving portion 24 of the communication party 4 from a transmitting portion 22 through a communication network 23. Thereafter, the signal is analyzed by a control signal processing portion 25. Corresponding to the analyzed result, a still picture encoder 27 is activated and then an input picture of a camera 26 is photographed.
Thereafter, the control signal generating portion 21 of the telephone unit 3 generates a control signal that causes the communication party 4 to transmit the photographed picture data. The control signal is received by the communication party 4 in the above-described manner.
After the communication party 4 analyzes the control signal, a transmitting portion 17 of the communication party 4 transmits the photographed picture data. The picture data is received by a receiving portion 15 of the telephone unit 3 through the communication network 16 and stored to the telephone directory 10. FIG. 2 shows the structure of the telephone directory 10. The picture data is stored to a picture memory 40 that is a structural element of the telephone directory 10. In addition, character information such as names and telephone numbers is stored to a character information memory 30 of the telephone directory 10. A picture-character information correlating memory 41 stores picture-character information correlating information composed of addresses of picture data stored in the picture memory 40 and addresses of character information stored in the character information memory 30.
However, there are problems in the related art reference. As a first problem of the related art reference, when the telephone unit causes the communication party to transmit picture data to be registered to the telephone directory to the telephone unit, a dedicated protocol that allows the communication party to perform the photographing operation and the transmitting operation is required.
As a second problem of the related art reference, in order to picture data and character information such as telephone numbers are correlated, the user is obliged to manually correlate the obtained picture data with character information and then register the correlated information with the telephone directory.